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What to do when star athletes are accused of sexual assault?

Football and sex have become intertwined. Is it time to tone things down? /Palm Beach Post

Two underage college students were partying, drinking too much. Two different colleges. Two different nights. One young woman was 19, one 17.

They met football players, and trouble followed. Both were taken back to a bedroom for sex. Both went to police afterward and said they had been raped.

The first incident happened at Florida State University in December 2012. The second incident happened at the University of Miami last weekend, and allegedly involved a Delray Beach man who had recently graduated from West Boca High.

In the first case, at Florida State University, the police didn’t conduct a complete police investigation. The university allowed the season to end before questions were asked. And the accuser dropped out of college, according to a report in the New York Times.

The young man she accused of assaulting her? Things have gone well for him. Jameis Winston was never charged. He went on to lead his team to a championship, win a Heisman Trophy and in June be named the Atlantic Coast Conference Male Athlete of the Year by sports journalists at the Atlantic Coast Sports Media Association.

At the University of Miami, the response has been dramatically different, and very swift.

As the Palm Beach Post’s Matt Porter reported, the 17-year-old girl sought help from campus police over the Fourth of July weekend with a report of being made incoherent, possibly drugged, and then raped from every angle by two men. Campus police called in Coral Gables police, who charged the 20-year-old men, linebackers JaWand Blue and Alex Figueroa, with sexual battery on a victim who was “physically helpless to resist.”

Police said the men had admitted to the assaults after being read their Miranda rights.

UM President Donna Shalala

The men were charged with felonies, dismissed from the UM football team and barred from campus while the investigation continues. UM President Donna Shalala issued a statement saying she had spoken with the victim and offered her full support.

The University of Miami’s response was made easier by apparently exemplary police work. Not so at Florida State University, which now finds itself under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights for “possible violations of federal law over the handling of sexual violence and harassment complaints.”

These incidents are anguishing for everyone involved. They should be used as teaching moments for young people — and some adults.

Alcohol abuse by teens is epidemic, with a third of all 12th-graders admitting to binge drinking in the two weeks prior to the survey, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
Meanwhile, athletes and women are too often depicted in popular culture, especially in the National Football League, as heroes and sex objects.

If more people talk about these issues — victim-blaming and sexism, the apparent untouchability of top student-athletes, the critical importance of self-respect and dignity — could these incidents be prevented?